Jordan Ford’s testing and official Free Practice ran mainly according to plan, with Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralph Firman completing a sufficient number of laps in both damp and dry track conditions as part of their set-up and tyre preparations.  Firman went off the track 15 minutes before the end of Free Practice with a front suspension problem, which the team is currently investigating.

In testing, Giancarlo Fisichella was 2nd quickest with a lap time of 1:37.815 and he completed 29 laps, while Ralph Firman was 5th with his time, 1:40.296, and he put in 20 laps.

FREE PRACTICE

GIANCARLO FISICHELLA 11th  1:37.847 20 laps 
CHASSIS NUMBER EJ13-04
“We have been doing a lot of work to understand the best choice of tyres for qualifying and we have more work to do with set-up.  The target is to be in the top ten in today’s qualifying, which may be difficult but I think it looks reasonable.”

RALPH FIRMAN 16th  1:38.516 13 laps
CHASSIS NUMBER EJ13-02
“Testing started off on a wet track this morning so we didn’t get as many dry laps as we would have liked, but I’m a lot more confident with the car here.  There’s a little bit of understeer but we’re working on it and I’m looking forward to qualifying.  The front suspension broke during Free Practice but we don’t know what that was yet.  It makes a difference knowing the circuit as I’ve been able to get straight to work on identifying which tyres are better and getting the right set-up. I’ve experienced both wet and dry conditions on the track as well.”

GARY ANDERSON
DIRECTOR OF RACE AND TEST ENGINEERING
“Testing went quite well and we’re happy that we got through our programme.  It was looking at different fuel loads and electronic changes to cure some problems that we had in the last race.  We got everything done quite effectively.  During Free Practice something happened to Ralph’s car with the left front suspension.  I haven’t seen it yet so I’m not sure what it was.  Giancarlo got through everything in the plan, so we’ll wait and see what happens.”